Challenge
Benefis Health System came to Nelson Architects and presented a design program with three main goals. First, was to design a state-of-the-art USP 797 certified hospital pharmacy. Second, was the integration of state-of- the-art drug dispensing automation equipment closer to patient care areas. The third goal was to use Lean design principals to make the routine operations as efficient as possible for staff.
Certification was easily achieved by working with clean-room -rated “room within a room” construction and a complex HVAC system that included a monitorable cascade of air flows. The sterile environment came with the added benefit of sharing natural daylight deep with the floor plate of the department.
Our firm worked with the hospital’s medical and facilities’ teams to design a state-of-the-art USP 797 (clean room guidelines) certified hospital pharmacy, integrated with Aesynt’s market-leading ROBOT-Rx® and MedCarousel® drug dispensing automation equipment. Threading the footprint of each piece of equipment around existing structural columns resulted in specific placement within the space, ultimately defining the entire Pharmacy workflow. The resulting placement exceeded the existing floor’s structural slab capacity. The solution was to strengthen the existing floor system from below with reinforcing steel, requiring a shutdown of a nearby mechanical room.
Cost: $1,253,800
Size: 6,180 SF
Unique: Retrofit of a new medical program into a restrictive existing space.
CLIENT
Benefis Health System
What we did
Architectural Design, Construction Management
Staff Assigned
Ryan Smith
